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No, what is needed is what Instructional Designers call "chunking."
Their research shows that people have an easier time of remembering
items that are arranged in related groups of 5 to 9 items. Well written
sections and chapters should have procedures that fall into that range.
For example, we find it easier to remember a phone number when it is
arranged in groups of 3 - 3 - 4 digits than in a single string of 10
digits. For one reason, we remember and area code, a local exchange and
the last four digits as three related objects, some of which are
familiar - the area code for example, or the local exchange.
So, when presenting all the procedures in a 75 page manual, you need to
create groups of procedures and ideas (concepts), even if the groups are
arbitrary. Otherwise, the reader gets lost in the trees because he can't
find the forest.
--
Charles Cantrell
chc -at- ontario -dot- com
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